That Dunford fella has already gone to see the Lucy exhibit in Houston … and he’s bragging about it on the interwebs. This makes me soooo jealous.
Oh well, he is paying the price. He may have gotten to see Lucy on opening day, but in exchange he has to live in Texas.
This sounds so familiar. A few years ago, a historian of science, Naomi Oreskes, reviewed the literature on climate change and concluded that there is a unanimous consensus in the published work that anthropogenic carbon is a major contributor to global warming. Now a denialist has re-analyzed those papers and is saying that Oreskes was wrong : almost half of the papers are “neutral”, neither supporting nor refuting anthropogenic change, while 6% do reject the idea.
Pharyngula got a small link from Dave Barry today. It’s one word (“YIKES”, which seems appropriate), but I have a dream that someday I will get a whole sentence. And it will be funny.
Oh yes, it will be funny.
Texans should be concerned about Texas H.B. No. 3678, an act “relating to voluntary student expression of religious viewpoints in public schools.” It’s authored by Charlie Howard, an overly cheerful and zealous member of the far religious right, and Warren Chisum, who will be known forever as the bible-thumping dwarf from Pampa, and it plays the pious fairmindedness card perfectly, while hiding the fact that it emerged from the sleeve of a pair of notorious liars for Christ. It is an underhanded and sneaky bill that, under the guise of promoting religious tolerance, actually has the purpose of stripping protection from minority views and allowing a Christian majority to run roughshod over secular institutions.
The Pivar story isn’t quite dead yet — Chris Mims discovers that one of his blog defenders was a public relations agent. It’s not clear if he was employed by Pivar — he has written press releases for Lifecode, though — but if he was, it looks like Pivar has another goon in his employ whose ham-handed efforts backfired on him.
It’s so hard to get good minions, lackeys, thugs, and bully-boys nowadays.
This is a kind of cephalart quickie, two images that are perfect for Pharyngula. If I had rooms here I’d hang them in ornate frames surrounded by expensive lighting.
Here is the patron saint of Pharyngula, St Architeuthis, by Skot Olsen.
This one is so beautiful it brings a tear to me eye; the only way it could be improved is if it were painted on black velvet. Here’s a test: I can’t name all the people seated at da Vinci’s Last Supper, but I can name every one in this picture. Can you?
Vampyroteuthis gazes at you with its terrible ancient eye…
Close it, please, for the love of heaven, close it!
When I see Jonathan Wells’ name on anything, I know I’m in for some furious gnashing of the teeth because of the man’s infuriating tendency to blatantly lie with every sentence. That’s the case with his recent baseless criticisms of the peppered moth story; Mike Dunford takes care of him this time around.
His blog is now two years old, which means it is at that point where it’s very cute but has an infuriating habit of saying “no” a lot and throwing tantrums. It helps if everyone makes sure that he gets his naps.
We had our very first meeting of UMM Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists tonight. About two dozen people had expressed interest before, so we expected, optimistically, about 20 people to show up. We got there a little early, and people were waiting for us … and then our 20 were there, and then more, and then more, and then more. I had to keep going up to the counter to tell them we were going to have to order a few more pizzas.
Final tally: 60 students showed up. We basically took over the whole restaurant.
